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In the past few years, many new types of technologies have emerged to help us embrace new ways to learn, view content and interact with it. By consequences, existing technologies and techniques are getting reviewed for their efficiency, reliability and cost.

Some game changing innovations that can revolutionize learning and teaching are the three main immersive technologies: Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR).

When it comes to studies, VR and MR can make a difference in a student’s learning by providing it more engagement with the material, a more immersive interaction (and in turn, less distraction), advanced and more relevant testing as well as getting the students hands on simulations early on. Each aspect of those immersive technologies can add a major improvement on almost every milestone of a student’s journey.

Interactive theory

Theory modules could be improved using VR by granting the student a broader look of its study material, as well as ways to interact with it. In the case of medical studies, students learning the details about bone and joint structure would gain the ability to view a given 3D object of an articulation, move around, twist and deconstruct the joint to have a better understanding of how it truly works. It would also make the understanding of specific diseases on certain body parts easier to visualize by animating the body part deterioration, which wouldn’t be as easily done with either objects or videos. The biggest challenge with theory modules is that students struggle a lot keeping themselves engaged with constant intensive learning, which is where immersive technologies and gamification can come in to help.

Technology in practice

Practical modules could be improved with both VR and MR by letting the student manipulate objects either in virtual space using VR, either in real space while being given additional information using MR. For engineering students, a MR workflow would let the student interact with objects with either virtual labels tracking real objects being manipulated. Furthermore, extra tutorial information for an experiment, such as the current step, the rules, safety precautions, will be available. For some potentially risky practical experiments, VR could help out by providing the student a realistic environment without risks, allowing the student to learn by trying without the fear of failing.

Creative Reality

Creative students could also benefit a lot from those technologies on both theory and practical sides. When it comes to creative fields, such as design and art, communication could be greatly improved by having hands on easy-to-use immersive devices. In design, prototyping is one of the most constraining bit because of the need to provide accurate information within a limited time. Certain fields of design, such as game design and 3D modeling/animation often requires the students to either go through a lot of writing or a lot of work to express a simple idea; while tools such as Tilt Brush (by Google) could provide a quick visual (perhaps animated) understanding of the idea.

A holistic learning environment

Immersive technologies could help testing students’ knowledge more properly than paper tests or most assessing methods currently used. When applied properly, VR/MR can create an environment suited for series of testing specific to the material: In the field of medicine, it can simulate an accurate stressful situation where a patient is going through an emergency while its family is screaming in the corridor, an electric engineering student can experience diagnosing an electric installation on a rough and windy day, architecture students could experiment structure design against various natural catastrophes or crowd simulations, design students could spend less time accurately brainstorming a prototype before getting started with the production, etc.

Using the growing Immersive Technologies, there’s a possible improvement in every field of study, in various aspects, allowing students to have a more engaging, smoother and fun learning.

Digital transformation will impact job roles in future. Hence, it is important to shape the role of an educator. Market leaders predict that Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) will change the basics of how teachers teach.

E-Learning

Immersive technology will enter e-learning and classroom learning in near future, making teachers mentors first, says Michio Kaku, Physicist and Author. A recent Technaviostudy predicts that online higher education market in the US is set to grow at a compound annual growth (CAGR) rate of 20% until 2021.

If teachers start using technology as a medium of instruction whilst teaching, it will enable students to learn the ropes of this at an early stage.

Some ways in which teachers can use AR/VR technology in classrooms:

Smart class: Moving away from traditional projectors or picture projects, teachers can use AR to overlay an animal or forest picture for a social science class or produce a square or hexagonal shape for geometry.

Presentation skills: Adding fun to Powerpoint, teachers can promote the use of AR/VR and prompt students to learn further by pointing at an object.

Beyond classrooms: AR/VR can be used anywhere with just a small, handheld device. This can enable teachers to make field trips and lab visits even more interesting with prompters and overlays.

The Technavio report further says AR in education market will grow steadily at a CAGR of more than 82% by 2021. Educationists say, students are increasingly interested in learning things that are aided with an augmented overlay or e-vision. In such an environment, the students are completely engrossed in the space around them. These enhance students’ cognitive and interactive skills.

http://appearitionwebsite-1862015318.ap-southeast-2.elb.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Blog3fb.jpg960960Deeptha Sreedharhttps://d3tu1gcznc6vmg.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/logo-new3.jpgDeeptha Sreedhar2018-01-29 22:52:472018-01-31 23:11:59Shaping the role of educators with technology

Almost two decades since the millennium, the evolution of intelligent technology has reached a stage where Augmented and Virtual Reality has become accessible reality.

AR/VR/MR boom

AI is set to feature on all digital platforms, apps or device this year, a trend that saw a boom last year.

AR/VR acts as the merger for multiple stand-alone technological things to an immersive technology, using the best of both worlds. Along with some conversational platforms, AR, VR, and MR will bring a fundamental shift to user experience, resulting in an immersive experience.

For example: From ‘Googling’ on specific information manually to just scanning an object and getting complete information on the object in front of us.

Appearition adds the ‘human’ element to AR/VR. ‘VR will change the way we shop, travel, learn and even create an informative platform in healthcare. AR/VR will create an immersive brand awareness changing the way businesses market,’ says Vivek Aiyer, Founder and CEO, Appearition.

Intelligent Apps and Analytics

AI will run unobtrusively in the background of many familiar application categories while giving rise to entirely new ones, predicts Gartner. For example, AR combined with analytics in a machine/app automates data preparation, insight to share with a broad business user and operational workers.

Digital Twin

These twins are digital ‘soft-copies’ of a real-world entity or system. A Gartner study says, with an estimated 21 billion connected sensors and endpoints by 2020, digital twins will exist for billions of things in the near future.

This aspect of technology will come in handy while studying or manufacturing heavy machinery, construction and to a great extent in healthcare. By overlaying digitally-created content into real-world environment, it enables everyone to view a replica of the project and sharing an almost-actual insight.

For example, Digital Twins can be created for an internal organ, so that one can view exactly where and what procedure they are expected to go through medically.